\nWhen experts or agencies deliver information to the public that they consider possibly or definitively false to further a larger, often well-meaning agenda, they are telling what is called a noble lie. Although the teller\u2019s intentions may be pure\u2014for example, a feeling of urgency that behavioral change is needed among the lay public\u2014the consequences can undermine not only those intentions but also public trust in experts and science. During the first year of COVID-19, leaders were faced with an unknown disease amid a politically sensitive election in the era of social media, and the preconditions for noble lies became especially fertile. Not surprisingly, we witnessed several examples. More than anything, these examples illustrate the destructive potential of such lies.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
The moment that I realized we were being lied to at the state level? May 11, 2020 Dash the Governors press conference, where the states \u201chealthcare economist\u201c told a reporter that they had no plans on releasing the code for the \u201cmodels\u201c that had predicted between 20,000 and 70,000 deaths in Minnesota by July 2020, because \u201cpeople might use that to reach different conclusions than we did\u201c.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That is the opposite of science, and a repudiation of any idea of trusting that particular institution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
With the impending retirement of Dr. Fauci, we are learning more about how much our federal and state public health bureaucracies deceived the public in the interest of \u201cthe public good\u201c. And, perhaps worse, the extent to which it is standard operating procedure: When experts or agencies deliver information to the public that they consider […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=83152"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83152\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83227,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83152\/revisions\/83227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=83152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=83152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=83152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}